## **Mary Clarke Statue Appeal** ## **Trustees’ Annual Report** ## **16th October 2019 to 31st March 2021** ## **General Information** : Charity name: Mary Clarke Statue Appeal Charity registration number: 1185845 Charity Address: c/o The Regency Townhouse, 13 Brunswick Square, Hove BN3 1EH Email address: jeancalder.mcsa@gmail.com Website: maryclarkestatue.com Date of charitable registration: 16th October 2019. ## **Charitable Objects:** To advance art and education for the benefit of the public by the provision of a sculpture of suffragette Mary Clarke in Brighton. To advance the education of the public about the role of the suffragettes in furthering electoral reform and equal rights for women by the provision of the statue, information and exhibitions. ## **Activities** : We are working to erect a statue of suffragette Mary Clarke in Brighton as a symbol of democracy and women’s rights. We provide talks, information and exhibitions, all with the aim of raising awareness of the suffragettes’ role in furthering democracy and equal rights for women. We work with the city council, women’s and community groups, businesses and trade unions. We have all-party support. ## **Trustees** : Our trustees have remained unchanged since registration on 16th October 2019. They are: - Margaret Flora Jean Calder (Chair) - Briony Graham Goulden - Kathryn Margaret Patricia Henderson - Andrew David Winter (Treasurer) Our initial four trustees sprang from the core group which was formally set up in November 2018 with the aim of achieving a statue for Mary Clarke. Three were co-directors of _For Our Daughters_ , a local women’s rights campaign which played a key role in setting up the Appeal. The fourth was a descendant of Mary Clarke. Most importantly, all four trustees had a firm commitment to raise public awareness of the local suffragette struggle along with the principles of women’s rights, equality and democracy. ## **Recruitment of New Trustees:** New trustees will be appointed for a term of three years by resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of the charity trustees. All trustees will serve for three years in the first instance, though retiring trustees will be eligible for re-appointment, up to a maximum of three consecutive terms. ## **History and Achievements 2018 - 2020** : The idea of a statue for Mary Clarke was first proposed in early 2018, the centenary of the first women achieving the vote, in a newspaper article by Jean Calder which highlighted the need to commemorate the forgotten suffragettes of Brighton & Hove. Initial campaigning and fundraising was undertaken in the name of _For Our Daughters_ , a local women’s rights campaign and was actively supported by the Brighton & Hove Women’s History Group. We were conscious that other cities were already well ahead of Brighton & Hove in their centenary plans to commemorate suffragettes, but we worked with Brighton Museum to attempt to remedy this. An initial attempt to fund the statue and associated activities in Brighton Museum by means of a joint bid (between _For Our Daughters_ and Brighton & Hove City Council) for Government Suffrage Centenary funding failed, but provided valuable experience. The Appeal was formally set up on 18th November 2018, the anniversary of Black Friday, the days when, in 1910, Mary Clarke almost certainly received the injuries which eventually led to her death. The small committee focussed its attention on raising community awareness of Mary’s life and working to achieve all party political support. We were grateful to receive the unanimous support of the City Council and to have been able to appoint Patrons from all locally represented political parties, including three local Members of Parliament, from Brighton, Hove and Lewes. We also gained the early support of Deputy Lieutenant Juliet Smith J.P. and Baroness Joyce Gould. We undertook a great deal of research into potential sculptors and types of design. While we did so we focussed our initial fundraising efforts on start up costs. We wanted: - a high quality website and publicity materials - to achieve charity status - a bronze maquette made to the design of the eventual statue. We were grateful to an anonymous donor who kick-started fundraising, in the very early days, and to a second anonymous donor who directly funded the initial website and publicity materials and video. We were also grateful for the generous support in 2019 of the then leaders of all three political parties in the Council, who kindly offered grant aid of £10,000 to help fund the maquette. Given that we did not yet have charitable status and thus could not easily benefit from GiftAid, we decided to fundraise via Local Giving (a funding platform which allows all its beneficiaries to benefit from GiftAid) and subsequently via Paypal as well. In the Autumn of 2019, having examined several excellent submissions from possible sculptors, we commissioned Stoke-based sculptor Denise Dutton to design our statue and, in time, make the maquette and statue. That same month, on 16th October 2019, we achieved charitable status as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). Shortly after that, the City Council released the £10,000 of grant aid. Denise Dutton began work on the design early in the new year and by March 2020 had completed the first rough plaster line maquette. At the same time we prepared for our first major fundraising event, a benefit jazz concert by Claire Martin and Liane Carroll, compèred by comedian Zoe Lyons and writer and broadcaster Simon Fanshawe. We were so grateful for their generosity in freely giving of their time and talent. This event could not have gone ahead without the wonderful support of many volunteers, not least from the Brighton & Hove Women’s History Group and inVISIBLEwomen, a campaign to achieve more statutes of women. The concert took place on 4th March 2020 and was a great success, raising several thousand pounds. Also performing were local a cappella group _Women of Note_ and _Siren,_ the Brighton-based feminist band. Earlier in 2020, _Siren_ ’s Jude Winter had composed a song in honour of Mary, which we were able to film, and place on our website. The new song was performed for the first time in public at the concert, to great acclaim. We were extremely fortunate to have been able to hold this event and a few days later to be able to have a stall at the International Women’s Day event in the Dome, because the pandemic was beginning and full lock down occurred later that month. ## **Activities and Achievements in 2020/21** Like all charities we were hard hit by the COVID lockdown. We could hold no fundraising events and though we did all we could, via social and other media, to publicise the Appeal, our income was smaller than we would have hoped. Nonetheless we used the time well, completing a video about Mary’s life, producing publicity materials and approaching national newspapers, persuading them to cover Mary’s life. Due to the efforts of trustee Briony Goulden and volunteer Margaret Hallah, we maintained a presence on Face Book and on Twitter. Ours is one of several campaigns set up across the country since 2018 to achieve statues for un-commemorated women, from Mary Anning to Virginia Woolf and The Match Girls. Of these, Mary Clarke, despite being Emmeline Pankhurst’s sister and the first suffragette to die, was the least well known. We have had to work hard to raise awareness of Mary’s life and sacrifice and thankfully she is now becoming better known. We achieved our first national coverage in an article in the Times and an interview on Woman’s Hour followed, as well as interviews on BBC Sussex and other local radio and media outlets. We joined an online national network of women’s statue campaigns and, as a result, Mary Clarke was featured in many articles in newspapers as various as the Evening Standard and the Morning Star. We worked with Denise Dutton to finalise the design for the proposed statue, then in December 2020, took delivery of two maquettes one made in resin and the other in bronze. Lockdown had eased a little and we planned to introduce both Denise and the bronze maquette to our patrons at a small Christmas meeting, hosted by the Mayor Councillor Alan Robins. In the event, COVID rules demanded we cancel even this modest event, though Denise and her partner kindly delivered the maquette in person and on schedule. We were unable to display the maquette in public until public venues opened up, later in 2021, but were able to achieve some useful coverage on BBC Television. During 2020/21, we sought and received the support of many influential people, including Katy Bourne, the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner and Sally Ann Hart, M.P. For Hastings and Rye. We also appointed our first two Ambassadors, artist and campaigner Terri Bell-Halliwell of inVISIBLEwomen and heritage expert, Howard Spencer, who works for Historic England. ## **Volunteers** The Appeal has no paid staff. Everyone involved is a volunteer. Apart from the Trustees, there is a core group of around thirty volunteers who assist the work of the Appeal. ## **Patrons and Ambassadors to 2020/21** We are grateful for the support of our distinguished Patrons and Ambassadors. Our Patrons are: - Maria Caulfield M.P. - Elizabeth Crawford - Simon Fanshawe - Professor Julie Gottlieb - Baroness Joyce Gould of Potternewton - Peter Kyle M.P. - Caroline Lucas M.P. - Professor June Purvis - Julia Smith J.P., D.L. Our Ambassadors are: - Terri Bell- Halliwell - Howard Spencer ## **New Appointments (in 2021/22)** New Patrons: - Peter James, Author - The Venerable Martin Lloyd Williams, Archdeacon of Brighton, Hove and Lewes New Child Ambassadors: - Lena Goulden - Sylvie Goulden - River Isaac - Isabel Kilburn (invited) - Sophia Kilburn (invited) ## **The Way Ahead (2021/22)** Subject to the limitations of COVID, we will continue fundraising for the £35,000 we still need to commission the statue, applying for grants wherever possible. We will continue community engagement, raising public awareness, working with young people in schools, and making the links between the Mary’s life and work and present day campaigns for girls’ and women’s equality and safety. ## **Financial Review 16th October 2019 - 31st March 2021** |**Income**||| |---|---|---| |Grant Brighton & Hove City Council|£
10,000.00|| |Fundraising|£
7,359.70|| |Events|£
3,100.00|| |||**£**
**20,459.70**| |||| |**Expenditure**||| |Maquette|£
5,623.20|| |Website|£
986.74|| |Fundraising Costs|£
116.00|| |Events|£
941.47|| |Banner|£
43.75|| |Miscellaneous|£
79.54|| |||**£**
**7,790.70**| |||| |Surplus / (Defcit)||**£**
**12,669.00**| Approved and signed on 11th December 2021 by Jean Calder (Chair of Trustees)